Author Archives: sandradan1

Unknown's avatar

About sandradan1

Novelist. I blog about writing, reading and everything to do with books and writing them at http://www.sandradanby.com/. Come and visit me!

#BookReview ‘The Last Day’ by @ClaireDyer1 #contemporary

4 Replies

Love is complicated, modern families are complicated, and a line cannot be drawn before and after. Whenever there is a last day, there is a first day too. That’s the theme of The Last Day by Claire Dyer, a deftly managed part-study of grief and mourning, part-teaser about how past events always affect the present. Claire DyerBoyd and Vita were married, now separated; Boyd owns an estate agency, Vita paints portraits of pets. Both have new relationships. Added to the mix is Boyd’s elderly mother irascible mother. When Boyd has a big tax bill, he and his girlfriend move back in with Vita. The collision of these three people has unforeseen results. So much of what we see at the beginning of this novel is unexplained, unravelling as the pages turn. It is tightly written with a minimal cast of characters. When you think you’ve got it worked out, there is another twist. Everyone is hiding something.
At the heart of the book is Honey Mayhew, except that’s not her real name. She is the catalyst of change. Wearing charity shop clothes and a smiling assured attitude, she goes for an interview at Harrison’s Residential and gets the job. Her connection with Boyd, as they sit in the car as it goes through a car wash, is transforming. Dangling in front of her is the temptation of a new life with an older man. Conformity. Security. Love. But Honey, addicted to horoscopes and superstition, a young twenty-seven year old, is mercurial. At times she seems more like the feisty troublesome teenager she was not so long ago. What happens to Honey as she is thrown into the very adult world of Boyd and Vita’s romance/marriage/separation/amicable friendship changes everything; it wouldn’t be a novel if it didn’t.
Living together, none of the three have bargained for the re-stirring of old memories in the house, and the tugging of anger and regret. Honey, because she is young and inexperienced; Boyd, because he is emotionally blocked; and Vita, because she considers she has moved on with her painting and her convenient relationship with Colin next door. Dyer is good at portraying the small details, the daily things. How Honey sits upstairs in bed in the morning, hearing Boyd and Vita reassume their old morning habit of coffee and crossword clues. How Boyd buys his mother some handkerchiefs for Christmas. How Vita watches families play in the park, and her bones feel heavy in her body.

Read my review of Dyer’s THE PERFECT AFFAIR and her poetry anthology YIELD.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes’ by Anna McPartlin
‘Etta and Otto and Russell and James’ by Emma Hooper
‘Please Release Me’ by Rhoda Baxter

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE LAST DAY by @ClaireDyer1 https://wp.me/p5gEM4-38t via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde’ by Eve Chase #mystery

2 Replies

A tale of sisters, secrets and the teenage years of confusion and temptations on the brink of adulthood. The Vanishing of Audrey Wilde by Eve Chase is about two groups of sisters, unrelated, who live decades apart in the Cotswold house of Applecote Manor. Overhanging everything is the mysterious disappearance of a twelve-year-old girl, Audrey Wilde, from the same house in the Fifties. Eve ChaseJessie and Will move to Applecote Manor, a rundown doer-upper, with their toddler Romy and Will’s teenage daughter Bella. Jessie is seeking a country life, Will hopes to step back from his logistics business. Almost as soon as they arrive, things change. Will’s business partner leaves and causes the sale of the company so, while he negotiates this, Jessie is left in the run-down house with the two girls. Romy fearlessly explores the potentially dangerous land, including river, pool, woods and well. Bella sullenly resents Jessie for not being her own mother, who was killed in a road accident. And then they learn about the disappearance of Audrey Wilde.
Is there something intrinsically wrong with the house and the land surrounding it? Why are the neighbours shunning Jessie and her two daughters? Who is the woman with the two black dogs who often stops and stares at the house? Why don’t local labourers want to work there? There are lots of things going on in this book, almost too many.
The second story strand focuses on four cousins of Audrey who, years after her disappearance, spend the summer of 1959 at Applecote Manor with their still grieving aunt and uncle. The girls, who are knitted together as a tight unit when they arrive, are teased apart by the arrival of two local boys, Harry and Tom. As the flirting and laden glances become more meaningful, the story darkens and some of the truth is revealed.
I enjoyed this book despite the occasionally dense plotting. There are many twists and turns, some of which could have been stripped out to give air to the central mystery. I particularly enjoyed the 1959 section and the inter-action of the four sisters, shadowed at every step by their memories of Audrey. The message: if you don’t face up to tragedy when it happens, it can reverberate through the years and never dies.

Click the title below to read my reviews of two other novels by Eve Chase:-
THE BIRDCAGE
THE GLASS HOUSE

If you like this, try:-
‘Freya’ by Anthony Quinn
‘Shelter’ by Sarah Franklin
‘The Distant Hours’ by Kate Morton

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE VANISHING OF AUDREY WILDE by Eve Chase http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2T9 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘Day’ by AL Kennedy @Writerer #WW2

5 Replies

Day, the title of this novel by AL Kennedy, does not refer to a period of twenty-four hours, but to Alfred Francis Day. Alfie. Rear gunner in a Lancaster in World War Two and now extra on the set of a war film. Past and present are mingled together as he starts to remember things he would rather forget. The passages in the bomber are electrifying, in their detail and understanding. The cold, the smell, the fear, how the professionalism of their training kicks in when the action starts. It is totally believable. AL KennedyThe timelines are mixed here as Alfred’s memories are inter-mingled: when Alfred was a member of the bomber crew; his time in a prisoner-of-war camp; and as a film extra in 1949. Where the novel is not so clear, for me, is the intermingling of these three timelines, though after fifty pages everything started to clarify. If you find this, persist and everything will fall into place.
Through Alfred’s memories and his conversations with Ivor, his post-war employer at a bookshop, his bomber crew and the other film extras, we start to piece together the story of his life. It is particularly poignant when he falls in love, heavily, after a fleeting encounter during a bombing raid in London. He meets Joyce in a shelter and from then on she fills his head, when his head should be concentrating on shooting down enemy fighters as his crew drops bombs on Hamburg. ‘Turning his head and turning his head while the heath beyond him dreams, his head pressing back in his pillow and eyes closed and no clear memory he can see, only the wonder that her heartbeat was everywhere in her skin.’
Alfie is a complex character. He is a small man who reads to educate himself. He is nicknamed ‘Boss’ by his flight crew even though he is not the skipper. In flight training, he asks Sergeant Hartnell to show him how to fight and win. ‘Look, son… You’re not the first. Happens quite often in fact. Lads come along and they ask me for help… help with an argument they’ve got to settle back home…’ He tells Alfred his best bet is to hit them from behind with a bit of pipe, but when Alfred gets his chance he throws bricks.
We learn most about him as he remembers his mother and father, both of whom die during the war. In Alfred’s head, his mother and Joyce seem connected and he learns that memories are fickle, the things we would rather forget are the ones that return. ‘Some memories, the ones you’d rather keep – the more you tried to look at them, the more they wore away.’
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

And click the title to read my reviews of these other AL Kennedy books:-
ALL THE RAGE
ON WRITING
SERIOUS SWEET

If you like this, try:-
‘The Paying Guests’ by Sarah Waters
‘The Slaves of Solitude’ by Patrick Hamilton
‘Wake’ by Anna Hope

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DAY by AL Kennedy @Writerer via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2C6

#BookReview ‘The Girl in the Tower’ by Katherine Arden @arden_katherine #folklore #fantasy

4 Replies

There is so much to The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden, follow-up to The Bear and the Nightingale. A strong female heroine, magical mystical Russian folklore, fighting, horses and danger. Katherine ArdenVasya is an awkward teenage girl in the mythical Middle Ages of old ‘Rus who does not like her traditional choice of marriage or convent; in The Girl in the Tower she is older and more defiant. You just know she is heading for trouble. She leaves home to wander and look at the world, refusing to worry about survival in the winter forest, and in so doing stumbles into banditry and violence that has implications for the power of the throne. I read the second half of this at a pace, wanting to know the outcome, not wanting it to end.
A faster-paced book than the first of the series, the two are tightly linked and so I hesitate to give away too much plot. Disguised as a boy, Vasya cannot help but attract attention despite the warnings of her magnificent stallion Solovey. Her exploits bring her to the attention of Dimitri, the Grand Prince of Moscow, and red-haired lord Kasyan Lutovich. Feted for her fearless fighting, Vasya’s disguise becomes more difficult to protect. Reunited with her brother Sasha, the monk who is Dimitri’s best friend and adviser, Vasya must maintain her disguise or risk the lives of her family. The secret must be kept at any cost.
It is a pleasure to read these books, confident that author Katherine Arden has a supreme hold on her material, the legends and the world she has created. And in Vasya she has a heroine who confronts evil in its many forms – the human sort of swords, ambition, bigotry and malicious words – and the superhuman sort of gods and demons, a firebird and magic jewels that confer control. Arden describes this world, and Vasya’s adventures, beautifully. In this second novel she grows from a teenager to a young woman, bringing with it an awareness of attraction and a kiss with a frost-demon. In parallels with heroes of other fantasy fiction – Philip Pullman, JK Rowling – Vasya shows respect for people and creatures which others may ignore and demean, so earning their loyalty and support at critical moments.
These are adult fantasy tales, complicated, dense and a rollicking read. A quite unusual combination. Can’t wait for the third in the series.

Read my reviews of the other books in this trilogy:-
THE BEAR AND THE NIGHTINGALE #1WINTERNIGHT
THE WINTER OF THE WITCH #3WINTERNIGHT

And also by Katherine Arden:
THE WARM HANDS OF GHOSTS

If you like this, try these:-
‘The Quick’ by Lauren Owen
‘Beneath the Keep’ by Erika Johansen #PREQUELTEARLING
‘The Magician King’ by Lev Grossman #2THEMAGICIANS

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE GIRL IN THE TOWER by Katherine Arden @arden_katherine http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2YK via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘No Time for Goodbye’ by @linwood_barclay #thriller #crime

1 Reply

No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay had me sitting up late at night, reading just one more chapter, and one more. Linwood BarclayWhen Cynthia Bigge is fourteen, her parents and older brother disappear from the house, never to be seen again. No bodies are found, no signs of foul play. It is as if they just walked away. But if they weren’t murdered, why did they leave? Did they hate her so, to abandon her? Twenty five years later, Cynthia takes part in a television programme to publicize cold cases. She could never have imagined what would happen next.
First, there is a mysterious letter. Then a phone call, an e-mail. Suggesting something is going to happen, hinting her family is still alive. Cynthia questions her own sanity, her husband [and the main part of the story is told from his point of view] questions it too, and their daughter Grace is seemingly untroubled except she looks through her telescope every night before bedtime to check there is no asteroid heading for earth to destroy their world.
This is a classic thriller. Who to believe? Is Cynthia’s family dead or alive? Who is contacting her now, the murderer? Is Cynthia so stressed that she is fabricating things? As the clock ticks, the police seem suspicious and there are more deaths, until a clue, something so ordinary it has been overlooked, suggests the truth.

If you like this, try:-
‘Gone Girl’ by Gillian Flynn
‘One False Move’ by Harlan Coben
‘Chosen Child’ by Linda Huber

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview NO TIME FOR GOODBYE by @linwood_barclay http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2dJ via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Slaves of Solitude’ by Patrick Hamilton #WW2 #wartimefamily

2 Replies

Patrick Hamilton is a new author for me. The Slaves of Solitude, published in 1947, is a novel about wartime in which war is deep background. The setting is Thames Lockden, a small town in the Home Counties, which Hamilton based on Henley-upon-Thames. It tells the story of Miss Roach – Enid, though hardly anyone knows this is her first name – and her life at a boarding house, The Rosamund Tea Rooms. Patrick HamiltonThis is a war novel with a difference, focussing on the people at home, not fighting but getting on with their lives in a world turned upside down, managing on a day-to-day basis, life is dreary and bare. Miss Roach, former schoolmistress, is single, 39, and fiercely independent. She has been bombed out of her London flat and has fled from the bombing. Life is dark. ‘The earth was muffled from the stars; the river and the pretty eighteenth-century bridge were muffled from the people; the people were muffled from each other. This was war late in 1943.’
Hamilton is a wonderful observer of human behaviour, he shows the nasty politeness between the residents at The Rosamund Tea Rooms, the bullying, the toadying, the power struggles and how the quiet ones are trampled over by the arrogant bullies. It is fascinating to see how the war makes things which seemed impossible before the war, possible. Miss Roach is a quiet, gentle woman, who over-thinks situations and constantly revisits things that happened and what she might have said. She is bullied at her shared dining room table by the odious Mr Thwaites who dislikes her democratic values, mistreated by ‘her’ American, the inept Lieutenant Pike, and stabbed in the back by her supposed ‘friend’ Vicki Kugelmann. Mr Thwaites is a clever portrayal of a man secure in the knowledge that he is always right and everyone else is wrong and inferior, reinforcing this position by snide comments to Miss Roach which, not wanting a confrontation, she sidesteps. The appearance in her life of the Lieutenant briefly gives Miss Roach’s confidence a boost, until she realizes that his compliments are always spoken in moments of drunkenness. She so longs to believe his protestations but is wary of his inconsequence so, when Vicki sets her sights on the Lieutenant, Miss Roach doesn’t know whether to be jealous or relieved.
Hamilton is a fine writer. He writes about the detail of everyday boring life and enlivens it with observations of human behaviour which are spot-on. The ending is satisfying and realistic.

For a taster of this novel, click here to read the first paragraph of THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE.

Read my review of HANGOVER SQUARE by the same author.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Paying Guests’ by Sarah Waters
‘At Mrs Lippincote’s’ by Elizabeth Taylor
‘The Heat of the Day’ by Elisabeth Bowen

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE by Patrick Hamilton http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2AH via @SandraDanby 

#BookReview ‘Anything is Possible’ by Elizabeth Strout @LizStrout #contemporary

8 Replies

Anything is Possible by Elizabeth Strout is an extraordinary book about normal people living normal lives. On the outside, people live private, God-fearing lives, they get by, they smile, they work. Inside, they hide secrets, horror, misgivings, sadness and love. With the same vision and delicacy she displayed in My Name is Lucy Barton, Strout tells us about the people of Amgash, Illinois, the small rural town where Lucy Barton grew up. Elizabeth StroutIn Anything is Possible, as in real life, threads of small town life are tangled together, generation after generation, each seemingly isolated but all connected by invisible tendrils of family, neighbourhood, school, farming. The shared history of living together through the years in close proximity, a community where everyone knows everyone else, their shame, their success, their failure, their betrayal and loyalty, is a community it is impossible to escape. Where adolescent misdemeanours, which may or may not have happened, are remembered as fact and decades of distrust attached. But as well as secrets and shame, there is redemption and love for those who face change and find a way to the other side.
This is more a collection of inter-connecting stories rather than a novel with a single narrative spine, but it is finely written with care and grace. A companion novel to My Name is Lucy Barton, it is not essential to have read that novel first but in some ways it does help.
There are nine chapters each focussing on one character and each, you realize at the end, are firmly entwined like the roots of a closely-planted grove of trees. In the first we see Tommy Guptill, elderly now, but once the caretaker at Lucy’s school. In the second, school counsellor Patty Nicely is insulted by student Lila Lane, daughter of Lucy’s sister Vicky. And so the stories keep coming as you gradually build up a picture of the Amgash citizens. After seventeen years away, writer Lucy is drawn back to the dirt-poor family farm where her brother Petie still lives. There, like the other characters in this novel, she discovers how your history cannot be left behind because it is hard-wired within you.
In her portrayals of these straightforward straight-talking Amgash citizens, Strout poses questions for the reader and does not give answers, expect to do some work yourself when reading her novels.

Read my reviews of these other books by Elizabeth Strout:-
AMY & ISABELLE
LUCY BY THE SEA
MY NAME IS LUCY BARTON
OH WILLIAM!
OLIVE KITTERIDGE
OLIVE, AGAIN
TELL ME EVERYTHING

If you like this, try:-
‘A Thousand Acres’ by Jane Smiley
‘The Stars are Fire’ by Anita Shreve
‘Barkskins’ by Annie Proulx

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE by Elizabeth Strout @LizStrout http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2TA via @SandraDanby

My Porridge & Cream read: Graeme Cumming

2 Replies

Today I’m delighted to welcome thriller writer Graeme Cumming. His ‘Porridge & Cream’ read is Eagle in the Sky by Wilbur Smith.

“My Porridge & Cream book is Eagle in the Sky by Wilbur Smith. I can’t remember exactly when I first read it, but suspect around 1977. I’d started reading him after seeing Shout at the Devil at the cinema. A week later, I spotted the book in my local library (remember those?), picked it up and became hooked on Smith for years after. Eagle in the Sky was just another I picked up to read, but it’s the one that stayed with me.
Graeme Cumming“I don’t read it often, probably once every five or six years, the last time about three years ago. I remember being surprised at how dated some of the dialogue came across, but it was written in the early ‘70s! Even so, I still enjoyed it. There are no particular circumstances that prompt me to read it, but, unusually for me, once in a while I like to go back to it: I know I’m going to love it, and I’ve usually forgotten enough to be surprised. I have bought this book as a present more than any other.

The one thing that ultimately draws me back to it is the emotion I feel at the end. I’ve even been known to pick it up and read only the final few pages. The same feelings I had as a teenager reading it for the first time come flooding back to me. And then more flooding starts, and the print blurs.

The plot: A reckless young man with a passion for flying uses his skills helping the Israeli army in their war to gain favour with a girl he loves. A terrorist attack and an horrific crash thrust the reality of conflict tragically into his personal life, leaving him to rebuild everything he previously took for granted.”

Graeme Cummings’ Bio
Graeme Cumming lives in Robin Hood country. He has wide and varied tastes when it comes to fiction so he’s conscious that his thrillers can cross into territories including horror, fantasy and science fiction as well as more traditional arenas. When not writing, Graeme is an enthusiastic sailor (and, by default, swimmer), and enjoys off-road cycling and walking. He is currently Education Director at Sheffield Speakers Club. Oh yes, and he reads (a lot) and loves the cinema.

Graeme Cummings’ links
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads

Graeme Cummings’ latest book
Graeme CummingMartin Gates left the village fifteen years ago because he didn’t belong any more. Now he’s back, and looking for answers. The problem is, no one wants to hear his questions. Well, maybe Tanya McLean, but she has an ulterior motive and her husband won’t like it. In the meantime, a horrific accident leaves a farm worker fighting for his life; a brutal killing triggers a police investigation; and even the locals are falling out amongst themselves. Is Martin’s arrival more than a coincidence? Do the villagers really want reminding of the past? And why are ravens gathering in Sherwood Forest?
‘Ravens Gathering’ by Graeme Cumming [UK: Matador]

What is a ‘Porridge & Cream’ book?

Graeme CummingIt’s the book you turn to when you need a familiar read, when you are tired, ill, or out-of-sorts, where you know the story and love it. Where reading it is like slipping on your oldest, scruffiest slippers after walking for miles. Where does the name ‘Porridge & Cream’ come from? Cat Deerborn is a character in Susan Hill’s ‘Simon Serrailler’ detective series. Cat is a hard-worked GP, a widow with two children and she struggles from day-to-day. One night, after a particularly difficult day, she needs something familiar to read. From her bookshelf she selects ‘Love in A Cold Climate’ by Nancy Mitford. Do you have a favourite read which you return to again and again? If so, please send me a message here.

Graeme Cumming

 

‘Eagle in the Sky’ by Wilbur Smith [UK: Pan]

Discover the ‘Porridge & Cream’ books of these authors:-
Shelley Weiner
Lev D Lewis
Margaret Skea

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Why does thriller #author @GraemeCumming63 re-read EAGLE IN THE SKY by Wilbur Smith? https://wp.me/p5gEM4-32g via @SandraDanby #amreading

#BookReview ‘Nightfall’ by Stephen Leather #supernatural #thriller #crime

4 Replies

The first page was really intriguing and locked me into the character of Jack Nightingale, a police negotiator turned private detective. He is a troubled man, troubled by what he has seen through the course of his job though nowadays he earns his living from following unfaithful spouses. Nightfall by Stephen Leather is the first of the Jack Nightingale series, described as a ‘supernatural thriller.’ Stephen LeatherThis is a different kind of detective story, which begins when Jack is told he has inherited a mansion from a man who claimed to be Jack’s natural father. That’s not all, his ‘father’ leaves a warning: at Jack’s birth his soul was sold to the devil and a devil will come to claim it on his thirty-third birthday. That’s only three weeks away. So Jack is in a race against time to find out the truth. Was he really adopted? Who is Ainsley Gosling? What is going on? Is he suffering from stress? Hearing things? Imagining things? Is he going to lose his soul? Or is it one big con? When people around him start to die, Jack begins to lose his sense of perspective. ‘You are going to hell, Jack Nightingale’ are the last words he heard at the end of his career as a police negotiator but now he hears those words again, said to him by strangers.
A page-turning thriller with a fresh angle on the crime novel. Not what I was expecting at all, if I’d been offered the chance to read a ‘supernatural thriller’ I would have said ‘no thanks.’ But I enjoyed this. Why? Stephen Leather knows how to keep the story moving, he really works the trick of finishing a chapter in a way which makes you read the next even though it is midnight. And I like the main character, Jack Nightingale. For once he is not a tortured depressed detective with relationship issues, and that made this book a refreshing read. The supernatural detective thing is very different, the most similar crime book I’ve read is The Silent Twin by Caroline Mitchell where the detective is sensitive to the spiritual vibes of recent murder victims.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Silent Twin’ by Caroline Mitchell
‘Wilderness’ by Campbell Hart #1ARBOGAST
‘Snow White Must Die’ by Nele Neuhaus

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview NIGHTFALL by Stephen Leather via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2dE

#BookReview ‘Skin Deep’ by Laura Wilkinson #contemporary

1 Reply

Skin Deep by Laura Wilkinson is a thoughtful, difficult book to read about modern-day notions of beauty, ugliness and society’s fascination with appearance. At times it made me feel uncomfortable. It is the sort of book which you find yourself thinking about long after you have finished reading it. It will make you think about your own attitudes to others, do you unconsciously leap to judgement based on their outward appearance, and how much do you worry about your own looks? Laura WilkinsonHulme, Manchester, 1984. Students Diana and Linda start university, Diana is studying art, Linda art history. Diana is keen to make her mark for something she can do with her hands, rather than how she looks. A former child model, people stare at her in the street such is her beauty. Via Jim, Linda’s boyfriend, Diana meets Cal, a four-year old boy neglected by his drug addict parents. He has a severe facial disfigurement and is kept from sight. He does not know a normal life. ‘Normal’ is a word which crops up often. In the child, Diana finds someone dealing with a mirror image of her own challenge: as Cal hides his face from strangers, Claire tried to avoid people ogling her beauty. I found the beginning a little slow and the story takes off once Diana is inspired by Cal to create a different kind of art.
Throughout time, artists have had muses. Cal becomes Diana’s muse, unwittingly at first when he is a child. The book treads a difficult, uncomfortable line. Diana loves Cal and tries to do the best, but what if her best is wrong? Of course, that is the thought process the author wants the reader to explore. As Diana’s success as an artist grows and Cal becomes a teenager, he starts to resent being ‘used’. Is she ultimately any different from her mother, Bunny, who forced her to enter beauty competitions, to refuse biscuits because they would make her fat?
The viewpoint switches between Diana and Cal and jumps around in time, particularly in the second half, which was disorientating. The main voice is Diana’s. I found her exploitative and unlikeable and would have liked to hear more from the adult Cal and the child Diana. Nonetheless this is a powerful, difficult read with underlying imagery of decay hidden by beauty.

If you like this, try:-
‘Orphans of the Carnival’ by Carol Birch
‘Life Class’ by Pat Barker
‘The Museum of You’ by Carys Bray

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview SKIN DEEP by Laura Wilkinson http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2PG via @SandraDanby